


(Re)action

by orphan_account



Series: Tumblr Prompts [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Multi, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:44:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>one shots abound, shipping ensues</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ransom/Holster

**Author's Note:**

> another batch of tumblr prompts! standalone, multiship, rated g and t

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ransom/holster, rated t

“Holtzy, I swear to _fuck,_ I don’t care about my birthday. I have a midterm tomorrow, plan the kegster without me.”  


“Dude, I got you a present,” Holster offers, benign, hanging over the edge of Ransom’s bed because Justin couldn’t manage the ladder to his own bunk.  


His head is too full of data tables to even begin to process it. Reaction times down to the thousandth of a second of neurons batter against the inside of his skull, and it eats away at his ability to play nice.

“I don’t want your fucking dick in a box,” he snaps.  


_Does repetition correlate with reduced rate of information transfer?_

No, it fucking _doesn’t_ , because three data points aren’t statistically significant.

“It’s not my dick, dude. I couldn’t find a big enough box.”  


Holster snickers like it’s news to Ransom that he’s packing six inches completely soft. After a while it’s just boring. Rans gets it–Adam Birkholtz is hung. Nice work, God.

“You’re shaking again.”  


Holster mentions it, hauls back onto the bunk, and climbs down to take up all the space on the bottom not taken up by printouts and periodicals. He’s halfway on top of Rans, and Justin wants to bury his face in Holster’s chest almost as much as he wants to shove the asshole to the ground.

“I found this apartment listing in Boston. My parents already told me they’re getting me a car for graduation, and it’s like a ten minute walk from Northeastern’s campus.”  


“Man, I haven’t been accepted yet.”  


He _will_. Justin’s grades are killer and he’s more than qualified for the DPT program, but if Holster jinxes him, dammit–

“You got into BU though, right? Isn’t that your backup?”  


“What’s going on?”  


Holster looks away with a shrug and mumbles, “I might’ve applied for us to move in in June. It’s no big deal, though.”

“Dude.”  


Ransom hasn’t had to space to even think about where he’d _live_  for his Grad degree. He’s gotten as far as _probably Boston, definitely New England_ before things like Captain duties and his senior fucking year distract him. He probably would’ve gotten his diploma and stood stock still in the hall of the Haus as he realized he was technically homeless.

Justin shoves the papers off his lap and topples Holtzy onto his side.

“You’re so fucking gay, bro,” Ransom says. He covers Holster’s prone body with his own and holds Holster’s big, goofy face between his hands. “You’re lucky I’m sort of in love with you.”

He won’t hold still, batting at Ransom’s chest and arms, so Justin gets his point across by kissing hair, glasses, elbow–whatever he can reach.

“Glad you like it,” Holster preens, hair a mess and glasses crooked.  


Ransom’s headache dims for the second that Holtzy’s lips touch his temple.


	2. Bitty/Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bitty/jack, rated g. angsty but optimistic.

The ghost of Bitty’s fingers and the phantom smell of cinnamon warmed by the oven stick around longer than Jack would’ve guessed possible.

With Parse, he had been so busy detoxing from the drugs, he’d had no chance to register how it felt to detox from the steady dose of someone’s love.

His apartment is empty, silent as a tomb without pop echoing from the iHome Bitty kept in the kitchen. Jack never realized how much he depended on the company. In his whole life, he’s never been alone like this, and no matter how much of a playmaker he might be when he’s not finishing them himself, without impetus he stagnates.

Jack’s life is nothing but roadies, ice time, and conditioning, where it used to be peppered with trips out of town to farmers’ markets during the last days of summer break. Somewhere he must have known that giving up Bitty would also mean he’d lose walks on rocky New England beaches and karaoke down in Massachusetts with the guys, but–-

It’s irrelevant. They aren’t things he’d enjoy without Bittle, anyway. Realizing how much of himself he dedicated to them, though–-to _Bitty–-_ and returning to hockey-–just hockey-–is a challenge.

He doesn’t want to say he’s miserable. He has his dream career and a beautiful home. He loves his team.

Bitty used to say the reason dessert has to come after the main course is that once you’ve had something that sweet, you can’t appreciate the nuances of the rest of the meal. No matter how good dinner was, it won’t ever taste the way it did before.

Jack didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. He didn’t understand, but he did as Bits said because he was the expert.

Jack understands now.

They’ve stayed friends, sort of. They talk through the old group text if not one-on-one. Jack went to Bitty’s graduation because they were still together when he’d agreed to come and Bittle said he didn’t want to see how Shits and Lardo settled who would get Jack’s ticket in his stead.

It’s not nearly the same. It had been impossible before to measure his affection with Bitty in public when he knew that they were happy and in love. Every moment they were together that they had to pretend they weren’t had felt like torture out of a Poe story, excruciating and slow. It was pleasant compared to being there for Bitty’s graduation. Having to hug without kissing and stare without lingering when all Jack wanted was to beg for Bitty back.

“Hey,” Jack breathes into his phone. He’s surprised for a second that Bits even answered, but he feels like an idiot for it. It’s been three months since the last time he saw Bitty in May, but he’s still Bitty.  


_“Hi, Jack.”_  


Caution and trepidation and the keen edge of heartbreak that Bits can’t keep out of his voice through all the layers of his forced optimism.

“I–-” he isn’t sure where to go. Where to start. He’s already apologized for being the one who couldn’t wait. He’s apologized for hurting Bits the way he can’t seem to avoid hurting everyone in his life. He’s apologized for prioritizing his own hurdles over Bitty’s, but none of that changes that Jack hurt him.  


_“Did you need something, swe–-Ja–-sweet–-”_  Bittle stumbles over the endearment until he comes to a stop.  _“What do you need?”_  


“Can I tell you something?”  


_“I have something I wanna tell you first, actually,”_ Bits says.  _“I came out to my mama last month. Planning to come out to Coach pretty soon.”_  


“Bitty, thats amazing.”  


He’s concerned, and his voice warbles with it. If he’d pressured Bits into coming out before he was ready when Jack hadn’t even had the courage to do the same, for all his bluster about wanting to be able to be honest with his fans–-Jack already knows he never deserved someone with Bitty’s selflessness, but this is egregious even for them.

 _“It wasn’t ‘cause of you,”_ he goes on.  _“She realized something was wrong when I came home for the summer and weaseled it out of me. At least that I got dumped, anyway.”_  


He laughs bitterly.

_“She’s still working on who it was, but you know how I am about keeping secrets.”_  


The words stick between Jack’s ribs.

“Bits, I miss you,” the words leak out from the weak spots of Jack’s clenched teeth.  


_“Oh, Jack,”_ Bitty sighs.  _“I miss you, too, but that doesn’t change a thing.”_  


“Can’t we just start over? I know I fucked up, but I lo–-”  


_“We can’t start over. I don’t want to forget what happened. That hurt._  


_“But it’d be nice to bring home a boyfriend I already know Coach likes.”  
_


	3. Lardo/Shitty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lardo/shitty, rated t.

There’s one beer left, and it’s his reward for finishing the last mock amicus brief for this shitty fucking legal writing course, and it’s calling his name. It’s the last of the case he bought before the semester started (anticipating at least one damn party a week that wasn’t fucking _catered_ ) and it’s going to be cathartic as balls when he shotguns it.

He saves the document seventeen times, prints three copies and hides two of them somewhere he’d never think to fuck with while drunk and/or high–one copy goes in his corporate law folder and the other goes in his goddamn agenda book because that’s his life now.

He tucks the third copy into the folder piled with the other things for the writing class and for good fucking measure emails the file to himself.

He’s _done_ , he’s fucking _finished his first semester_.

“Lards.” He clears the snot out of his throat with a cough.  _“Lards, I did it.”_

Lardo is spending the week with him. She had all early finals, but she told her parents her last one was on the nineteenth to eke out some bro birthday time. As far as Shitty knows, she’s been sketching him for the past couple hours (exact number of hours is unknown because of the wormhole that opens whenever Shitty has to write the word “adjucate” more than once in the same paragraph).

“Hey, have you seen the…?” He snaps his head around, looking for her and for the can that’s been sitting like a beacon of hope on his TV, both missing.  


_“Oh.”_   


Lardo’s in his bed. Not in itself novel, since they’ve been bunking up her whole trip so far, but she’s not usually chilling there with a can of keystone in her hand (she usually has better beer than that) and a fucking killer smirk (it’s her token _I just totally nailed you_  smirk, and Shitty hasn’t seen it since he was stupid enough to play quarters against her).

“You’re done everything?” she asks, cracking the tab open with one hand like she doesn’t have dainty-ass fingers that regularly do shit like draw deadly wings with her eyeliner and make her own calligraphy pens out of aluminum cans.  


“Uh, yeah.”  


Lardo drains half his _fucking can_  in one swallow with her eyes on him. They’re so dark they just absorb the light in the room, and Shits feels the drag of their gravity.

He’s never going to tell her about that though. That’s at least six months worth of chirping ammo served up on a platter.

“That’s my celebration beer. That was my reward for finishing the semester and you _knew that, man_.”  


“Huh,” she muses. She takes a smaller sip, and Shitty tries not to grin–to maintain his air of indignation. “Sorry, dude.”

She holds her tiny, fucking minuscule left hand out to him and crooks a finger.

“Think maybe you’d be down to share?” she asks.

In the end, Shits spills most of what’s left. Lucky for him, it sits tacky on Lardo’s skin. Bless her generous heart, she lets him taste his victory. 


	4. Bitty/Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bitty/jack, rated t. real people (hockeys) mentioned, but they are not characters.

Usually when the sight of Bitty in nothing but a jersey greets Jack, it’s the beginning of a night for the highlight reel. The Falconers let Jack keep his jersey from his first NHL game, and between Bitty’s slight frame and sweater’s having been made big enough for Jack in his pads, the collar slips over bare shoulders and does something to the possessive part of Jack that rattles in his ribs like a tin cup against prison bars.

The fabric that drags against Bitty’s thigh isn’t blue, though–it’s black. And the number on his sleeve isn’t a one but an eighty-seven.

His boyfriend, _Jack’s boyfriend_ , is wearing _Sid Crosby’s_  jersey in bed.

“Take it off,” he growls without preamble. His bag slides to the floor and lands heavily, but neither of them flinch.

“Your uncle Mario sent it to me for my birthday,” Bitty grin. “It’s even signed!”

He pulls the shirt away from him to better show off the scrawl across the penguin on Bitty’s chest. Under the jersey, Jack gets a glimpse of black and gold, and if Mario sent his boyfriend autographed penguins underwear, too, he’s going to be disowning a few relatives and burning the gifts for good measure.  


Or maybe he’ll sell them and donate the money to the Falcs and Friends LGBT outreach charity. He’ll do something, but the specifics will have to wait until Bitty isn’t representing the enemy.

“Take it off,” Jack grates out again. He toes off his shoes.  


“Excuse me? This was a present, Jack,” Bitty does some lip-biting and lash-fluttering that would send Jack to his knees any other night.  


“You heard me. Take. It. _Off_.”  


Bits flushes and grins, staring with the most defiant arch of the brow that Jack’s ever seen on him.

“You can’t just–”  


Jack pounces, and Bitty squeals. Bits arches his back, suddenly without complaint when Jack slides the jersey up to his armpits, letting his hands slide along the sides he reveals in the process. His forearm slips into the curve of Bitty’s back, and Jack lifts him tight against his own chest to get the thing over Bittle’s shoulder blades and off.

“Honey, be careful! I wanna keep that!”

Bitty really should have thought of that before wearing it in _Jack’s_ bed.

“I hope you know,” Jack mumbles against Bitty’s sternum after lowering him back against the sheets. “I wouldn’t be doing this if there were penguins on these, too.”  


He kisses down the center of Bittle’s chest, drawing out low moans and giggles. The cradle of Bits’s hand fits snug against the curve of Jack’s scalp, fingers tugging lazily at his hair. The boxers Bitty wears are plain and black, but Jack is hardly any less hasty in tugging them off.


End file.
